The Tennessee Volunteers have hopes of being able to return their head baseball coach, as he is currently receiving national-level attention both in the college world and the MLB, as he has received some offers to jump up from the college level to become an MLB manager for one of the more intriguing teams across the nation.
That team is the San Francisco Giants. The Giants are one of the main teams who has been in need of a new manager, as they are actively searching for their new guy. While there are multiple people who have their name on the table, Vitello is their No. 1 guy.
The initial report was that the Tennessee Volunteers coach and teh Giants were close to finalizing a deal, but nothing is official. He has been at practice the last three days, which is a good sign.
Tennessee fans made their way to watch the Tennessee baseball scrimmage as they packed the porch for what has been going by Tony Watch. A chant broke out, which caught the attention of Vitello. The Tennessee Vols coach was bombarded by chants that stated “we want Tony”. He would later take a ball to a fan, which was pretty cool to see.
Take a look.
Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello during game one of the NCAA baseball tournament Fayetteville Super Regional between Tennessee and Arkansas held at Baum-Walker Stadium on Saturday, June 7, 2025. / Brianna Paciorka/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
A “we want Tony” chant broke out and Tony Vitello turned to acknowledge it pic.twitter.com/TbhIKSQW7O
— Mike Wilson (@ByMikeWilson) October 21, 2025
Tennessee fans can expect a longer wait for the news, as nothing has been released as of this time. This is something that was touched on by an MLB reporter by the name Andrew Baggarly. Baggarly went on the KNBR show and would discuss how uncertain this decision has been for the Tennessee baseball coach. Here is what was said.
“I mean I don’t know, I really don’t know. This is not something that Giants have floated out there. They have been locked down, we don’t have any team sources on any of our reporting. It’s all through the industry, so this is not to their advantage to have this news out there if they really want to get this guy. But he’s got some choices to make. The ball’s in his court really, Tony Vitello. Maybe another team will look at this and be like ‘why aren’t we talking to this guy?’ Then another team is calling, so there’s a lot of different permutations. This is the guy that they have offered the job to, now we just have to found out if they can match it up.”